Joan Chen

Some actresses are discovered at soda fountains by producers. Joan Chen was spotted at a Chinese rifle range -- by Mao Tse-tung's wife.

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As a teen, the Shanghai-born Chen earned the label "the Chinese Elizabeth Taylor." At 26, she wowed Western audiences in Bertolucci's 1988 Oscar-winner The Last Emperor, playing a sex-and-opium crazed empress. But by the '90s, Chen realized how few good parts there were in Hollywood for smart, beautiful Asian actresses--finding herself in Judge Dredd with Sly Stallone and On Deadly Ground with Steven Seagal back-to-back was proof enough of that. That's basically why Chen is now the director of MGM's $50 million Autumn in New York, a glamorous, old-style romantic drama starring Winona Ryder and Richard Gere as May-December lovers. There is a missing step, of course--her directorial debut, 1998's Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl, a remarkably accomplished drama shot in the wilds of Tibet. Chen credits Autumn's producers with taking a chance on her, though they didn't do so without reservations.

"The producers were constantly back-seat driving," she says. "And I became hostile--I started rejecting all their suggestions," Enter peacemaker Gere. "Richard said, 'Hey Joan--how come you're behaving like the Chinese government? Why don't you learn to negotiate?' I laughed-- because he was right. Once I was able to explain my vision to them, things went well." Gere and Chen have something unusual in common: they've both run afoul of the Chinese government--Gere for his pro-Tibet stance and Chen for shooting Xiu Xiu on the sly in Tibet without the proper permits. But that had nothing to do with their good karma as filmmaking collaborators, Chen insists. "The reason Richard Gere has stayed a star for so long is, he's smart. He'd never let such issues get in the way of moviemaking. We never talked about that." Instead, Chen focused on the inner lives of her stars. "Richard hasn't been this emotional since An Officer and a Gentleman," she insists. "And Winona does serious drama well, but she's also got this explosive, Audrey Hepburn charm that hasn't really been exploited. That's what I tried to capture." Chen admits she was initially intimidated by Gere and Ryder's star power, but it turned out both of her superstars were "on the same level spiritually... they're both Buddhists,'' says Chen. "And Buddhist values are not egotistical. I think Buddhism is good for Hollywood." Now back in San Francisco, where she lives with her doctor-husband and young daughter, Chen admits she wants to act again. "Someone write me a part!" she pleads. "I miss it." Would she direct herself? "Maybe," she says. "I was looking at my daughter the other day, thinking, I'd like to do a movie with her. Her innocence is very moving. Maybe a movie with her, the dog--and me."

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Joshua Mooney